Tips & Tricks - What do you do if one day forget passord Windows do you have? Or if you are an admin on a company, and then there was one employee who idly change the password even if you have determine the password for each employee ?. Choosing the road to re-install Windows is certainly not a wise choice because it will waste a lot of time and effort.

Here is a way to break down (reset) Windows password by using Ubuntu 10.04. You can use this technique on the version of Windows XP or newer Windows.

First step, please boot the computer with the Ubuntu Live CD. Arrange the BIOS to select the CD / DVD drive as the first boot media, then insert the CD Ubuntu 10.04 and wait until the system is finished loading.
 Second step, make sure that you use a computer connected to the Internet and run the terminal via Application - Accessories - Terminal.

 
After the display terminal window type the following command and press enter;

sudo apt-get update

will your password if prompted, the package list update process will be carried out, wait for it to finish
 
Close the terminal window, proceed to the next step ...

Third step, installing the package chntpw. Please run the Synaptic Package Manager application. After the program starts, type "chntpw" in the search box and hit enter ... after chntpw package is found, right-click on the package and select the "Mark for Installation"
 


After chntpw marked, click the "Apply" button to begin the installation process ...
Synaptic will check the dependencies and other packages are needed, the ditapilkan confirmation window, select the "Apply" to continue the next process.
 
 


Downloading and installing the package will be executed ...
 
 

After installation is complete implemented, click the "Close" to end the process.
 

 

Fourth step, mount the disk partition Windows through Places - select media on the Windows installation is located. 
Note: If in this way the hard disk can not be mounted directly, please follow the steps in the displayed by the system. 
 

In the Nautilus window that has been opened, view and record the header / title displayed for the media you just mounting ... see picture below for more details ...
 
 

There appears to title as follows "2A8CA0178C9FDC1F" This code will be different on each computer, record media code on your computer because it will be needed in the next step ...

Fifth step, chntpw running applications, open the Terminal application and type

cd / media / [your media code] / Windows / System32 / config where your hard drive is mounted, for example ...
cd / media / 2A8CA0178C9FDC1F / Windows / System32 / config and press enter ...

Once you are in the directory in question, please type the following command;

SAM chntpw sudo -l and press enter ...
 
 

chntpw will be executed and then the screen will display information such as in this example ...
 
 

Please observe ...

/ * SAM policy limits:
Failed logins before lockout is: 0
Minimum password length: 0
Password history count: 0
| RID - | Username ---- ---- | Admin? | - Lock? - |
| 01f4 | Administrator | ADMIN | dis / lock |
| 01f5 | Guest | | dis / lock |
| 03e8 | Lab_Virtual | ADMIN | |

On the computer that I use for testing, it appears that two users with the status Administrator dis / lock and Lab_Virtual. Here I will cite a way to clear the password for the user then Lab_Virtual so that user can log on to Windows without requiring a password ... Type the following command and press enter;

-u chntpw Lab_virtual SAM conformity with the user on your computer ...

At the terminal will be shown this kind of information ...
 
 

/ - - - - User Edit Menu:
1 - Clear (blank) user password
2 - Edit (set new) user password (careful with this on XP or Vista)
3 - Promote user (make the user an administrator)
(4 - Unlock and enable user accounts) [seems locked already]
q - Quit user editing, back-to-user-select

This is the instruction that you can use;

Type 1 untul perform the Clear password, type 2 to change the password, type 3 to improve the status of a regular user to admin, type 4 to unlock if user you select status dis / lock, in this example the user Administrator status dis / lock, so that to be able to choose option 1 or 2 you need to run to the 4 first option to unlock the administrator user.

I choose option 1 to clear the password on the user Lab_Virtual. Type 1 and press
 


Type "y" to approve the confirmation "Write hive files" and press enter. Well now it can enter into your Windows system without requiring a password again. Close the terminal window and reboot your computer to immediately enjoy the results of efforts to break the password of Windows.

Note: You do not have to use Ubuntu Live CD to perform this step if you already have Ubuntu installed on the computer system. Quite loose hard drive that contains the Windows installation, and then install it on the computer that you use to reset.

Good luck....